Really? I've been an embedded guy for 40 years, and have decoded more than my share of bit streams (1553 and MPEG being most prominent). Not to mention dealing with several brain dead hardware instruction sets.

So the one thing I focus on in a language is the one thing that is mostly ignored? I has a sad.

Yes, really. It was on the exam a long time ago (Java 1.4 or 1.5 I believe)

Jim Venolia wrote: I've been an embedded guy for 40 years, and have decoded more than my share of bit streams (1553 and MPEG being most prominent). Not to mention dealing with several brain dead hardware instruction sets.

So the one thing I focus on in a language is the one thing that is mostly ignored? I has a sad.

Most people don't deal with bitwise operators though. So while it is common in your domain, it's not across the board.